A YouGov poll released on February 18 found that 55 percent of U.S. adults were not interested in the gig when asked about “being President of the United States for a day,” while 39 percent said that they would be interested in a single-day presidency. Nearly half of all men, 47 percent, said they were interested in taking on the presidency. Only 31 percent of women expressed interest.
Biden hinted at his job not being exactly in demand during a press conference announcing D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as his U.S. Supreme Court pick on Friday. The president noted that, while showing Jackson’s daughter Leila around the White House, he had asked whether she would like to be president one day.
“I asked Leila, when I showed her through the office, whether she’d like to be president,” Biden said. “She looked [at me and said] ’no, I don’t know about that, there’s other things.’ Anyway Leila, you’re welcome to be here, thank you so much.”
Last week’s poll also asked respondents if they would “rather have the job of President of the United States, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, or the Speaker of the House of Representatives.”
Respondents were split between the jobs of president and chief justice, with president holding a 27 to 26 percent edge. Speaker of the House was the least popular choice at 9 percent, while a 31 percent plurality answered that they were interested in “none” of the jobs.
Americans who were interested in being president for a day were much more confident that their job performance would be superior to “that of the average U.S. president in history” than those who did not want to sit in the Oval Office.
A 63 percent majority of those with presidential ambitions said they would be “much” or “a little” better than average, while 43 percent of those not interested in the job had the same opinion.
Republicans who were interested in the job were the surest of their abilities—69 percent said that their job performance would be better than most. Interested Democrats were a little less confident, although a 59 percent majority agreed.
Only 14 percent of all Americans said that their job performance would be worse than average if they were to become president. Men who wanted the job were the least likely to agree, with only 6 percent saying they would perform poorly.
The poll was conducted among 4,257 U.S. adults who were interviewed online between February 15 and February 16. No margin of error was listed.
Newsweek reached out to the White House for comment.
